Literature can allow readers to grasp realities outside their own. That is at least what happened to me when I read Rick Revelle’s book I am Algonquin this past month. (Link to my review) By reading it I was able to learn about the lives of the Indigenous peoples who lived in the area I grew up and lived in before Europeans arrived. But as I was researching and talking with Revelle, I realized his writing his Algonquin Quest series was an equally profound a journey for him as reading them was an enlightening one for me. Revelle was kind enough to answer a few questions for me and share his story about writing these books.

1) First off, could you give a bit of an outline of the “Algonquin Quest” novels for anybody who may not be familiar with the series?

My three novels in the Algonquin Quest series take place in the early 1300’s pre-contact, of what is now Eastern Canada, the Ottawa Valley, Northern New York State, Southwestern Ontario, Minnesota and The Dakotas. They follow the lives of four brothers and their family unit as they try to survive against the elements and their enemies. The brothers names are Mahingan (Wolf), Wàgosh (Fox), Kag (Porcupine) and Mitigomij (Red Oak). You will be introduced to shape shifters, Native legends, powerful warriors men and women. There are two warrior women who are part of this family group that are two spirited and feared by all their enemies in battle, there is a handicapped warrior who is mysterious and powerful. My stories tell the reader how the Native people accepted these people and why. The novels use the Native languages of the Anishinaabe, Lakota, Mi´kmaq, Mohawk, Omàmiwinini (Algonquin), and Ouendat (Huron), in the vernacular. All the geographical places in the books that I talk about you can physically walk up to them today and know there were Native people there 700 years ago. The books are fiction, however the culture and way of life that I talk about are non-fictional. My books are a story of survival, family, love and respect for you allies and your enemies. They are stories of what Turtle Island was like before the coming of the Europeans. A society that cared for the people around them and would die defending them.

2) What were your personally reasons for writing these books? How are you finding the reaction to the series so far ? Have there been any memorable reactions to the book you care to share?

I wrote these books because there was nothing written about the Algonquin (Omàmiwinini) people and I wanted to find out who I was. To do this I decided I would research and travel the country and put what I found in a story for other people to know who these people were. “Unless You know where you have came from you will never know where you are going.”

The reaction to my books so far are surprising me weekly. It is hard to imagine that someone you do not know will come up to you and say I like what you have written. It is surreal at times. The Frontier School Board in Manitoba which is north of the 54th parallel have taken the Algonquin Quest Series from the beginning and introduced it into all their schools as class reading and reference. Currently The Frontier Board and Dundurn Press are working diligently to have I Am Algonquin translated into Cree for these students. The Limestone District School Board in Kingston Ontario told me in May that my books were going to be put in all 60 school libraries in their system. That was a very humbling moment for me. I know that many other school boards use my books. Plus two of the largest owned Native book distributing companies in Canada who distribute Native books written by Natives to schools and universities carry my series. Goodminds from Six Nations Ontario and Strong Nations from Nanaimo British Columbia both have honoured me with distributing my books under their Native banners.

One reaction to my books among the many that stands out was what a Métis fisherman and hunter from Nova Scotia told me. Alvah D´Entremont never in his 50 odd years of life ever had time to read. His brother-in-law Larry Porter gave him my first book I Am Algonquin to read. Among other things he told Larry, who is a good friend of mine, that he was totally amazed at what I had written and how I was able to put him right there in that time frame in the woods and that he couldn’t put the book down. Alvah has read all my books now and has said they are the best books he has ever read in his life. Well the fact is, they are the only books that he has ever read in his life. As a writer that will always stay with me.

3) “I am Algonquin” was published in 2013. “Algonquin Spring” was released in 2015. And “Algonquin Sunset” was released last June. Has your writing style changed much since you first started out? If yes, how so?

I think I have become obsessed with the research as I moved along in my storylines. I never starting writing until I was 56 and some things have not changed for me, I am terrible on tenses and that keeps my home town editor in business to clean things up before it goes to the Dundurn staff. Thank goodness for editors. I love taking long bus rides and train rides and writing long hand. Twenty pages from my notebook will get my forty once I fill in the research and dialogue. I love writing that way. I am self taught and find it a little harder to sit at the keyboard and pull words out of my head. But when I write in a notebook it like a river sometime, everything flows out of my head. In the end I would have to leave that question to my readers. They would be the ones who could say if they have seen a change.

I love public events. During the school year I am kept busy visiting schools and talking about my books and the era they take place in. I travel with a I call a small museum of artifacts of that era that the students love seeing and touching. Children and teens love being read to an I love reading and bring my stories to life.

For the next six or seven months I have a few things booked.

I am in Brockville July 29th at Coles book store from 11AM to 2PM signing books.

On August 5th I am signing books during the Princess Street Promenade in Kingston (Link to the event’s website) at Novel Idea from 10AM to ?. This is a event that runs from 10 AM to 4PM where they shut down the main street of Kingston Ontario for about eight city blocks and merchants and vendors put up tents and of course open their stores. It is done twice a year and attracts 8,000 to 10,000 people.

On January 16th 2018 at 7:30PM I will be speaking at the (Hastings County) Historical Society monthly meeting at the Maranatha Church. (Link to their website)

Then on May 2nd 2018 I will be speaking at the monthly Probus meeting in Manotick Ontario at the St James Church. (Link to their website)

Plus all the school visits that willbe requested once the new fall term starts.

5) You seem to have an active presence on social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. How do you as a writer like using those tools? Do many of your fans contact you and give you support for you work via social media?

Well my wife handles my three Facebook pages for the three different books and she tells me that there are comments and likes. (Link to the “Algonquin Sunset” Facebook page) I send her what I would like put on there. Twitter, after many urges from my publisher I have started using that and I find it very helpful in getting the word out as to where I am going and what I am writing about. (Link to Rick Revelle’s Twitter account page) You have to realize I am old tech, I have no cell phone, no bank card and no microwave oven. My wife is amazed that I am self taught on the computer and can do what I do at age 65. Me, I have having the time of my life. In fact I call getting published with three books out at my age, “sugar at the end of my life.”

6) You biographies have you listed as living in Glenburnie, Ontario (Just outside of Kingston) How do you like living there as a writer? Are there any social or cultural institutions in that area that inspire you as a writer?

I have lived in the area all my life. I grew up in two very small towns of under 1000 people. Odessa and Wilton Ontario. We have lived in Glenburnie for 30 years. Our son only went to one elementary school and one high school so he was very happy. Before I was 18 my family moved seven times. In forty years of marriage we have moved three times. My sisters have been regular nomads like our Algonquin ancestors. Living in the Kingston area enables me to get in our car, on a train or a bus and travel within a day’s drive to do research or go to a writers festival or visit a school. Kingston is very central to Toronto, Montreal and all points in between. I am an avid canoeist an hiker and my stories relate to these experiences. I can practically step out my front door to hiking trails, lakes and rivers. What inspires me in this area is the closeness to nature. We live in the country and the coyotes howl at night the birds are at our feeders and the raccoons are in the yard in the evenings. I do not need to go far to get material to write about. Plus I am an avid golfer and from the social aspects of this I get the ideas for the characters in my books.

7) Are you working on anything new right now? If yes, are there details you care to share?

When I finished Algonquin Sunset I closed up a lot of loose ends. Except maybe one. I am working on a book, I do not know if I will finish it. It takes place in Manitoba and Saskatchewan with the characters that went west at the end. It will explore the beginnings of the Saulteaux Nation who were the Anishinaabe that went to this area, plus their foes the powerful Blackfoot Confederacy of the Siksika (Blackfoot), Kainai (Blood) and Apa´tosee (Northern Piegan) Nations. The novel would be called Algonquin Legacy. To do this book properly I will need to travel to Manitoba and Saskatchewan and research these nations and their languages.

I just need a couple of bus and train trips and I will be good to go.

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I am extremely honoured to be able to answer these questions for your readers,